Star Tech Journal

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• • ••••• • .• · •. Septemhefl 991 · .· · •·
Pioneer CD Juke Popm.eter Readout
Interpret the Hex
Erwin Boot
Automatic Music Company
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
SUBJECT
The above Pioneer CD juke boxes have a most
interesting (if you're into that sort of thing!)
though highly unusual method of displaying the
popularity of CD's during popmeter interroga-
tion - it's in Hexadecimal form!
HEX READINGS
We had been seeing weird
5A, 3f, 2b, etc. type
popmeter readings and had
been ignoring them believ-
ing that we were finding
garbage in the RAM. Wrong!
For some reason known
best to Pioneer and not ex-
plained in their manuals,
the number of plays is dis-
played in hex format! (Only
I more chip in the circuit
would have brought the
display into an intelligent
understandable readout
form.)
A right side figure of an:
A represents 10
b represents 11
c represents 12
d represents 13
e represents 14
J represents 15
Normal numerals in the
right side column have
their proper indicated
value. The left side figure
represents the number of
"16 times" to which must be
added the value of the right
side figure.
EXAMPLES
Thus, a Pioneer popmeter
display of 39 plays doesn't
really indicate nearly 40
plays, but instead indicates
3 lots of 16 (- 48) plus 9, i.e.
a total of 57 plays.
BASE 16
For those not familiar with
hexadecimal, (which is a
system based on 16) use
the following formula for
converting the display:
►
►
►
►
Similarly, Id indicates 29 plays (16 plus 13), 4A
= 74 (4 x 16 = 64 plus 10) and ff indicates 255
plays (15 x 16 = 240 plus 15).